I suppose that’s one interpretation, my father said.
Or is a novelist a man intent on throwing a blanket over his most private thoughts? All right, a different profession, then: psychiatry. I have spent a mint on psychiatric care for my children. Who knows what they’ve told those hacks? The girls swear it’s life-altering. They’ve even suggested that I try it. Can you imagine me—me?—on a couch, divulging my secrets to some little man in glasses with a notebook in his lap? I’m too old to excise my essential nature. I am the shape of those unspeakable things I’ve done, and I do not, at this late stage, have any desire to change that shape. I’ve explained my reasoning. My obligation is to remain static. My obligation to my grandson.
I understand, my father said.
I imagine you are familiar with the practice of psychiatry.
I am.
Has it changed your life? Albert said.
Come on. That’s how children talk, my father said. At best—at best—it allows you to admit your own secrets to yourself.
So you’re on speaking terms with your secrets.
I have them around for poker every Thursday.
Hm, Albert said. You confess those secrets to your psychiatrist?
My father’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Psychologist. No. Not all.
Not a terribly effective therapy, I’d say.
He’s not there for gossip, my father said.
Does it do the job, though? Does it protect you from the fears that keep you from crossing the street alone? What about the elevators? Does it protect you from those?
My father finally picked up his drink.
Even if I didn’t see you out there, Albert said, gesturing toward the window, cowering at the street corner like some mental patient who’s afraid winged lions are about to swoop down from the sky, I’d know. Your deformity is obvious.
None of us live in a state of grace, Albert.
You’ll get no argument from me there. Come on, now, have another drink. Have I offended you in some way? Certainly you don’t think your phobias are some sort of secret. God, man, you practically wear them on a sign around your neck. You’re a wreck of a human being, Erwin.
And I can’t argue with that, my father said.
I’m no different, Albert said. At least you might get better. I’ll only get worse. My condition will turn me into a drooling idiot. Which leads me to my proposal. I would like to chart its progression. In exchange for your help, I think we can make productive use of my condition. I believe I might be able to help you with whatever dreadful thing has made you into… this.
By all means, don’t spare my feelings, my father said.
Whatever transgression you’ve locked up within yourself, it’s turned you into a creeping bug of a man. What if I could help you shake it loose? Give it a shove and see what happens to it in the light of day?
You’re a charmer, Albert. But what if there’s no mystery? Maybe there’s nothing more than good old child abuse at the root of my problems.
No, Albert said in a tone without menace. No, it’s not that. You’re suffering for your own actions. You’ve done something terrible.
My father did not answer him.
Have you ever considered what it would be like to speak that shameful secret aloud to another person?
I don’t need the sales pitch, my father said. What is it you want me to do?
I’d prefer that this be an equitable arrangement.
I’ll consider your offer. But tell me what you want me to do for you.
I’d like you to administer a test. Once a week.
To chart the progression of the disease, my father said.
Correct.
Your daughters can’t do it?
I don’t want my family involved. They’d either be feeding me the answers or weeping uncontrollably. They wouldn’t be able to help themselves. I need an impartial judge. And, frankly, you don’t seem like you have any trouble keeping things to yourself. Your—whatever you call them. Phobias. Neuroses. They’re all the evidence I need. In return, as payment, I’d like to suggest that as my memory fails, I might serve as your confessor. At a time of your choosing, you can speak your secrets to me, in whatever detail you like. And you’ll be assured that I’ll have forgotten them by the time you’ve gotten home.
It’s a novel idea, my father said.
I’m told it’s liberating, relieving oneself of the burden, Erwin.
You’re selling me the cure?
I haven’t spent my life in courtrooms without learning a thing or two about a man’s conscience.
No one’s ever accused me of having one of those, my father said. Why don’t you have a neurologist administer the test?
A neurologist would want clinical justification, and they’d just put me in front of some standardized test, anyway. More importantly, a neurologist would inform my family, and that can’t be allowed.
And why don’t you just write up a multiple-choice test and grade it yourself?
You don’t think that’s my preference?
So?
Have you listened to anything I’ve said? When the mind starts to go—when it’s hurtling downhill faster than I can run—I won’t be able to keep the schedule. I won’t remember to stay within the time limits. I don’t trust that I’ll even remember to do it in the first place. I need an interrogator.
I see, said my father.
I am your way out, Albert said. I will be the bottomless hole you can pitch your transgressions into. You can confess the sin without confessing the sin.
Why don’t I just go down to the coma ward and tell a vegetable? my father said.
You know that won’t work, Albert said. You need a living, breathing, conscious human being to react. You need the reaction. If I am horrified, if I am shocked by the depths of your depravity, then you’ll know you’ve told the truth. You’ll have dug right down to the root.
I’d rather you just give me a six-pack and thank me for my time.
That’s an option. But out of balance.
Because you need commitment that goes beyond my desire to do a good deed.
Yes.
And once you’ve reached a state of incapacitation and I tell you all my little secrets, then what?
Not complete incapacitation. Incipient incapacitation. When I reach the cusp of forgetting my grandson’s death and my role in it, that’s where we end.
And then what? my father said.
Then your work will be done. The weekly tests will end.
For Christ’s sake, Albert. And then what?
Then I’ll shuffle off this mortal coil. Clear enough? You’ll be legally protected, if that’s what you’re worried about. If I behave in an unusual manner after the evaluation period ends, you’ll have nothing to concern yourself about. You’ll have done nothing more than proctor a test.
Oh, for Christ’s sake, Albert. You can’t be serious.
Albert shrugged. Arguably, it’s the only sane decision available to me. And you have the stomach for this sort of thing. I know that much, he said.
My father looked back at him.
Generally, you hear that boys aren’t a gentle species, Albert said. Girls are more perceptive, even when they’re small. You know this. Your daughter’s a sharp one. But my grandson didn’t fit the mold. He was small—even for a little boy, he was small. And he was gentle. I don’t know that he would have been able to make his way in the world. You worry about children when they show no inclination toward cruelty, don’t you? You think, How will they survive? We had little talks, he and I, about dolphins and starfish. His very existence was steeped in innocence. For me to do less than attend to his memory in this way… I might as well piss on his grave.
Albert said, At the very end, after he became an innocent, my father went through one final transformation. He became an animal. Raving, calling out to phantoms, throwing punches at anyone who came near him, and two seconds later wailing like a lost lamb, holding his arms out, begging for us to embrace him. Save me, he’d cry. Save me! Then, just before he died, he became peaceful. The demons vacated his sorry corpus and left behind nothing but an empty sack.